i would prefer to avoid the trade skills at the moment as they sound a bit too powerful and not my cup of tea . I noticed yesterday though that while my warrior has been upgrading gear a lot through loot , my mage is wearing the same robes from level 5 to 19 . Necro robes with 75% mana regen , I've found the destro , conjur and resto robes but they didnt seem that great , not seen any others.

Are there plenty of robes out there? and i just aint found them? , do you get robes , rings etc ... that lower spell cost? , or improve mana effiecency in other ways?

Apart from staffs i'm not finding anything exciting at all for my mage . I assumed i would have found some cool robes to help my mana by now.

They're the robes you already found but didn't think seemed great. You'd need enchanting to make better.

Or you'd need spoilers. But you didn't post there.

I've found amulets increasing mana pool, but sold them because I didn't use magic. And a plethora of similar robes (as you found). Nothing spectacular as of yet.

After the arch mages robe, the best you will see are the uninspired 'Expert' and then 'masters' robes. They aren't very good.

You will need enchanting to get anything worthwhile for endgame.

The robes do get better as you level,
A Master Robe of Restoration is stronger then the Adept Robe of Restoration for example.

There is one particular good robe in game which destroys all others, but other then that you'll have to use enchanting for gear or hope on some really lucky drops.

I recently picked up a ring that reduces my destruction spell cost by 15%, and I've found a variety of amulets which reduce the cost of certain spells, increase magicka regen, or increase the magicka pool. This sort of equipment is certainly rare (I'm level 15 and my collection of magic weapons I don't use is much greater than my poll of mage items) but other than the ubiquitous skill-boosting robes found on enemy mages most of it has been useful. I'd also say nearly have of the mage items I've found are staves. I really need to get in the habit of using them more often.

If you complete the College quests you'll get some nice equipment.

thanks for the replies , i'm just about to get those robes from the mages guild , they do look good stats wise. Nice to hear you can get rings to lower spell cost.

I bought a robe from the wizard in solitude that had +100% magika regen and -17% destruction cost.

What does +100% magika regen means ?
That the magika is regenerating faster 2x ?
Is it really possible to have one only item 100% regen? I thought you had to sum various items...+12+15+25+...

Regen? That gets handed out like candy. Heck, there's an item that does +200%.

It's reduced mana costs that is harder to build up.